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August 6, 2003
I’m sorry that I am such a slug, but things have been pretty busy in my life and this is one of the few things that I could cut out without somebody or something falling apart. My laptop crashed and was in the shop for almost three weeks so my computer access was pretty limited during that time. I finally got it back and it seems to be working great!
I think that the last big project I was involved in before I abandoned everybody was the Silent Auction ~ which I have to say was a big success! We raised $7,105.00 at the Silent Auction and just over $17,000.00 with the Carnival and Silent Auction combined. What a great FUNraiser it was, the kids all had a great time and though I never made it out of the Media Center (Silent Auction) to check it out, I heard that the Carnival was fantastic. It was A LOT of work and I just finished preparing and sending out more than 250 thank you letters for our sponsors!! I decided that two years was enough for me and I turned in my resignation the week after the Carnival, over a lot of whining and complaining from the rest of the PTO and Carnival committee. They printed a little blurb about needing someone new for next year in the PTO newsletter, so it’s nice to see that they took me seriously. While I will stay on the committee and take over another position next year, I will not be working during the Carnival and for the first time in three years will actually be able to enjoy it with my family.
Mackenna ~ 30 inches tall / 26 lbs. / strawberry blonde hair / green eyes
I cannot believe how much and fast Mackenna is growing into a little girl. It’s really bittersweet to see all the changes taking place before my eyes. On one hand I cannot wait until she moves onto the next stage and accomplishes something new, but at the same time I want her to be little forever, or at least for a while longer. She thinks that she can do everything that Lexi and Kimmi are doing and is so active, much more so than both Lexi and Kimmi were at that age ~ she just NEVER stops. They include her in their activities now and she even plays “school” with them and does “projects” it is SOOO cute!! She is always climbing up on things or crawling under things, tipping things over or pulling them down onto her. She has already had two black eyes and a couple of very bad scrapes, not to mention the never ending bruises on her forehead from running into something or falling on top of it. It’s a good thing that my daycare provider knows how she is and that we are not beating her! LOL!!
Mackenna’s vocabulary is exploding and I have stopped counting all the new words that she can say. Although my favorite word that she says is “BACKPACK,” it sounds like that little duck from the Aflac commercials!! LOL!! She tries to repeat everything that you say to her and so the girls now think that she is their new play toy by making her repeat EVERYTHING ~ while it’s very cute, it’s also VERY annoying! She has taken to wearing things around her neck, a belt, purse, underwear, etc., whatever she can find she picks up and attempts to place it around her neck, she is either going to hang herself or become a leading jewelry designer someday.
She still loves her crib and when you tell her that it’s bedtime, she will run to the stairs and start climbing up to go to bed. Once she’s in her crib she will lay down, hug her baby to her chest and put her thumb in her mouth, we cover her up and she will not make a peep for the next 12 hours or so. I wish that Lexi and Kimmi were still that easy! Mackenna is completely baby crazy and drags a baby doll with her everywhere! She makes you kiss them and hold them and she kisses them and talks to them and tells them all “LOLU” (love you) ~ it’s so cute, I have to get the video camera out and record her doing this along with her new habit of snoring! Lexi taught her to pretend that she’s asleep so she will lay down and “snore” ~ it is really cute and she is such a ham.
Things that go bump in the day ~
Wouldn’t you know that both of them concern Mackenna!! Lexi, Kimmi and I were laying on the floor playing old maid and Mackenna was taking a nap (or so we thought) when we heard a loud boom from upstairs. Lexi and I both went running up the stairs and found Mackenna exiting her bedroom. It appears that she figured out how to climb out of her crib and she was fast making an escape. She has not done it since and I don’t know if she forgot how she did it, or remembers it all too well and doesn’t want to land on her butt (or head) again.
A couple of weeks ago Germ was changing the brakes on his truck and the girls were outside playing and riding their bikes (we live in the back house on a cul-de-sac), Mackenna walked in front of Lexi on the sidewalk and Lexi couldn’t stop in time. She hit Mackenna with her bike tire right in the middle of her back and knocked her down, she had BAD road rash on her arm and her knees were skinned up and she had a big old knot on her head. I actually thought for a minute that I would have to take her to the ER, she kept holding her arm and saying boo-boo, once I figured out that her road rash just stung really bad, I cleaned it up, put aloe vera on it and bandaged it. Poor Lexi, she was hysterical!! She cried longer than Mackenna did and kept asking if she would be arrested for hurting her if we took Mackenna to the ER ~ I almost felt more sorry for her ~ poor kid!!
Kimmi ~ 44 inches tall / 44 lbs. / medium brown hair / brown eyes
I don’t know what I would do without Kimmi. She is such a little imp, but at the same time absolutely adorable ~ with her chubby little cheeks and big brown eyes, it’s hard not to love her. She knows how to push both Mackenna and Lexi’s buttons and can get them both to scream and yell in less than five seconds, then the next minute she is being so sweet and helping Lexi or cuddling with Mackenna. She is so stubborn and independent (both good things if you ask me), but at the same time she just has a genuine sweet and gentle nature about her. She is one of those kids that just attract other people to her and all of the kids at daycare say that she is their best friend.
Kimmi is the dancing queen and loved her dance recital! She was in hula heaven and looked adorable in her costume, with her belly sticking out and her hula skirt swaying when she shook her hips. I had a hard time putting make up on her!! I know that it was just for the recital and that she needed it so that she wouldn’t look all washed out, but still, I felt really weird putting makeup on a four year old, complete with mascara and red lipstick. She is taking two dance classes this summer, the first is a combination tap and ballet class and the second is a cheerleading and gymnastics class. The first thing that she says when she wakes up every morning is “Is it dance day today?” My Mom is wonderful and only lives about two miles from our house so on Mondays she picks them up from daycare and takes them to dance (she works for the school district) and then brings them home afterward and waits for Germ or me to arrive. It really makes things easy on us when they have class earlier than we could get home.
Jynx the dog ~
A couple of months ago we decided that we were not good pet owners, not that we were bad or mean to them, but we just didn’t pay enough attention to them and it wasn’t fair to them to not be getting enough love and attention. So we started looking for good homes for each of them, initially we wanted to keep them together, but that was pretty impossible to do. Lexi’s teacher adopted Jynx (Kimmi’s dog) and is now best friends with their Great Dane, but getting to that point was a little rough!! Kimmi thought that since we were getting rid of her dog, we were also getting rid of her!! I started crying when she told me that during our bedtime chat and then understand why she was so cold to C (Lexi’s teacher) and her husband M when they came to take Jynx home for a trial run. I talked it over with C and then both she and I talked to Kimmi about Jynx going to live in a new home, but that C would e-mail her pictures and we could come and visit. After she was assured and reassured that she was not part of the package deal, she was happy as could be ~ funny kid!!
Doing something right ~
On the last day of school we took Lexi and Kimmi to see Finding Nemo at the matinee movie. The theater was packed as the movie had just come out and so of course there were people behind us. About 10 minutes after sitting down I see Kimmi get out of her seat and turn around, I turned to see what she was doing and she said to the person behind her “excuse me, could you please stop kicking my seat.” I swear I wanted to leap in the air ~ I wanted to shout out loud and sing at the top of my lungs! I was SOOOOOO proud of her, to be four years old and have enough self confidence to stand up for herself and yet do it so politely without even asking for my help at all!! I thought my heart would burst I was so proud of her and told her so several times ~ I guess we are doing something right. Our goal is to raise three independent, emotionally secure daughters, it looks like that’s happening ~ YAY!!!!
Lexi ~ 50 inches tall / 60 lbs. / ash blonde hair / blue eyes
Lexi, poor Lexi, she is still struggling to find her place and I know that this is just the beginning. My Mom swears that all kids from 8 to 11 should be sent away and returned when they are “normal” again. She said that with all three of us (my two older brothers and I) she had a much worse time from 8 to 11 then when we were teenagers.
Lexi ~ she is an AWESOME big sister 95% of the time and loves being a little mother to both Kimmi and Mackenna. The other 5% of the time she loves to terrorize and scare them!! She is having a ball in her hip hop and cheerleading / gymnastics class and probably does at least 50 cartwheels a day now. I caught her practicing them on her bed the other night (it’s a double ~ thank heaven), and we discussed why that’s not exactly the smartest thing to do.
She really misses school and her friends and is anxious to go back. She will start school on the 25th and she hopes that she gets a male teacher, as all her previous teachers have been female. Since Kindergarten, Lexi has been in advanced classes for Reading and last year she was pulled out and put into an advanced class for Math. I cannot believe some of the things that they have her doing and some of the study questions that she has. I remember in the first grade she read Helen Keller and one of the questions was “when do you think that Helen felt the most alone.” HOLY CRAP! Pretty heavy questions for a 6-year old if you ask me ~ but she really enjoys it and even made me buy her a workbook this summer so that she could do “homework.” Her daycare provider taught her how to knit and she has been making pot holders for everyone around here, she takes orders and people even buy her the yarn that they want. I certainly don’t know how to knit, but she does beautiful work and everyone who sees her stitches comments on how even and perfect they are. What a great skill to have and she really enjoys it ~ maybe she’s related to AmyF!!
She got it again ~
Lexi has strep throat again!! She finished her medication on a Wednesday and on that same Friday afternoon she was complaining again of a sore throat, so back to the Dr. we went. We were lucky to get squeezed in on a Friday afternoon and finally saw the Dr. about 5:30 p.m., he put her on a three-week course of antibiotics and said that this is the last step. Since her tonsils are infected with strep and the previous meds only cleared up the strep on the outside and never penetrated the actual infection it keeps recurring. If this medication does not clear it up then they will remove her tonsils. He was a pretty cool Dr. (I’ve never seen him before) and said that he will explicitly document everything about her tonsils and then if it fails, we will not have to be referred to an ENT for their diagnosis, we can just make the appointment for surgery. I like the straight forward no nonsense kind ~ just tell me like it is and then we can deal with it. He was pretty upset that it’s taken us this long to even be put on a different medication. Hopefully whatever the outcome, she will be fine and ready for school.
Germany and I ~
We are both doing well and staying busy. Things are hectic around here (as usual), but a few months ago his hours were cut back at work and I really went into a funk about the whole thing. While I am really happy that he was not laid off and that things have picked up a little more, it’s still not back to normal. We really count on his overtime and have been struggling with losing more than $800.00 per month in overtime pay from our budget (not that we have one!). Things are either really busy or really slow at my office and we have a big trial next week in Eagle (No - not Kobe Bryant), so I will be up in the Vail valley next week for that. The girls are okay with me going as I will have to stay up there and at least it should be cooler. I actually plan to take a couple of easy / fun books with me and may actually get some reading done.
The D word ~
DIET ~ Germ and I are both dieting and trying the whole low carb thing. So far ~ so good ~ it’s just been two weeks and he has lost 18.5 lbs. and I have lost 8.5 lbs. That whole guys lose faster and easier thing REALLY SUCKS!!!
So drop by and visit ~ I promise to answer your posts quicker than I have been!!
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Let me know if you have done the whole low carb thing and if so what worked?
What didn’t?
How much did you lose?
How long did you stay on it?
If you have more than one child ~
Do they have different eye and hair color from each other? It’s kind of funny that we have three little girls, same Mom, same Dad and each one has a different eye and hair color.
Last but not least welcome to all the new diary writers on Moms Today ~ I look forward to getting to know each of you better.
From me and mine to you and yours ~ Stephanie
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